Temperature, Reflectance Point to Frost near the Moon's Poles

  • Released Wednesday, May 31, 2017
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A view of the south pole of the Moon showing where reflectance and temperature data indicate the possible presence of surface water ice. Includes music and narration. Music by Killer Tracks: Full Charge - Zubin Thakkar.

Scientists studying data from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) have found evidence of surface frost near the poles on the Moon. Elizabeth Fisher, Paul Lucey, and their colleagues combined temperature data from LRO's Diviner instrument with reflectance from its laser altimeter (LOLA) to find places that are cold enough and shiny enough to indicate the possible presence of surface water ice. Their results appear in the August, 2017 issue of the journal Icarus.

A view of the south pole of the Moon showing where reflectance and temperature data indicate the possible presence of surface water ice. This is the source visualization, without titles or sound.

For More Information

See NASA Orbiter Finds New Evidence of Frost on Moon's Surface

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NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio

This page was originally published on Wednesday, May 31, 2017.
This page was last updated on Monday, July 15, 2024 at 12:05 AM EDT.

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Papers used in this visualization

American GeoPhysical Union (2012, December 5). Press Conference: Fire in a Changing Climate and What We Can Do About It. American Geophysical Union (2012, December 5) Press Conference Slides: Fire in a Changing Climate and What We Can Do About It (PDF).Giglio, L., J. Descloitres, C.O. Justice, and Y. J. Kaufman. 2003. An Enhanced contectual fire detection algorithm for MODIS. Remote Sensing of Environemt, 87:273-282.

Evidence for surface water ice in the lunar polar regions using reflectance measurements from the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter and temperature measurements from the Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment, Icarus 292 (August 2017), 74-85

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